Hey Wayfarer, thanks for taking a look!!
I don't do woodworking as a career but I would have loved to. I have been doing it as a hobby since I was 15 and we have been making Tiki Bars and decor up here in B.C. for the last 6 or 7 years.
Thanks for the kind remarks!! You brought a smile to my unprofessional face!!

Alright PuPu, I know it's time for an update so let's show some more!

I left off where I was just building the cabinet that would hide the window and go behind the bar. At the same time I was doing this, I started to do the bamboo for the ceiling.

Here is a shot of the room again and the roof area, or hut area, where I was going to add the bamboo:

Here's a shot again of the left side with the beginning of the 2-piece cabinet and the roof. You can see the Heather now mounted over top of the Seagrass thatching on the ceiling:

My goal here is to have thick, old looking bamboo in a grid pattern where you have the lower pieces coming straight from the wall and up into the center of the roof. When coming from the wall and up, they look like they are coming out of the wall and also highlight the pitch or angle of the roof.
The first plan was to have all the pieces of bamboo meet in the center of the roof and then run one large piece of bamboo or a dark piece of wood down the center tying everything together. (Keep looking to see what I ended up doing!!)

With the ceiling bamboo pattern, along with the materials I was using, I wanted to mimic a ceiling from an old postcard I posted earlier but I will show again here. This is from the old Mauna Loa Lounge that was once in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba:

This type of design was used in several different Restaurants. Here's another type of style:

This one is from the Trader Vic's that was once in the Savoy Hilton in New York.
I really like using old postcards or photos from the great old Tiki restaurants and try to recreate what they had once done. It usually acts as a good base at the very least and then I change my plans from there.

Here is a shot of the first couple pieces of bamboo going up into position:

I got a bunch of old Bamboo that had been sitting in a nursery for a while that we dealt with. Not as good a score as Duke found with all that bamboo they managed to get from an old basement bar for his Lounge, but still pretty good.

These pieces were 3-4.5" in diameter and were about 10' long. I only paid $7 each for them because they were "old and ugly"!! That was about $15-$18 cheaper for each one than what my supplier could do for the same size!! Plus, those would have been new and bright colored and I would have to spend time aging them. These ones, I wiped clean, and then mounted! They look like they came out of Trader Vic's themselves!!

Because I didn't want them to come down from the ceiling too much, I split these and then mounted them. I was still mounting another bigger piece underneath these so again I didn't want them to hang down too much. If I had left them whole these would have come down about 7" or so once done! I managed to split them into three's so they worked good, stayed strong and I didn't as much.

Here is the left side with all the first cross pieces up:

You can see in this shot the flat center part in the middle of the ceiling. The piece on the right is the beginning of the right side. That flat part in the center of the ceiling was making my head hurt!
I wasn't sure how I was going to tie it all together once I got this far so my plans had to change. Instead of one center piece, I was going to have two pieces run down the outer edge and then tie in with smaller cross pieces.
The problem with that was I was now loosing the look I wanted where the bamboo would look like it was coming out of the wall and into the ceiling. Like it disappears through the roof to give a look like it was holding everything up.

At about this time I got a phone call. Trader Vic's Bellevue.....was shutting down. They were having an auction. After I stopped crying, a week later, I took a trip down to Seattle to try and get me self some Trader Vic goodies!!

Anyways.....

Here's one where you gotta use what you can when your working on the ceiling!!:

The right side going up:

I was screwing through the bamboo (Pre-drill first!) right into my 1x2 frame underneath. This was a bit challenging as I could no longer see where my supports were so I had to measure and plan it out. Next time I would cover the frame work with plywood if I could. The screw holes will be covered up by the next layer of bamboo.

Looking at the right side all mounted:

This is a good shot of where you can see the flat part in the center.

Looking out from under the Hut towards the rest of the room:

This is looking up at the roof, standing just out from under it:

It was starting to take shape now but still lots to do. It was cool to see how the bamboo really gave a different look to the whole room. This was just the first little bit as well!

Okay, here's the left side with the first addition of the main bamboo:

With the two outside pieces mounted:

You can see some of the seagrass cord that I was playing around with and would be eventually wrapping all the connections with.

The next few pieces going up:

Once I started tying with seagrass cord:

At first I wasn't going to split this section of bamboo but decided I should because of the distance down from the ceiling it would hang.
It turned out fine and looks pretty good split.

All four of my bigger pieces mounted and tied:

When completed, these will all have "X's" tied over the existing cord I tied.

Bamboo Ben must drink alot of beer to get through all his ceiling work! A real pain in the back but what a awesome look when it's all done!! This is a baby compared to the great work that he does!

I got through it with a little too much coffee! Not a pretty picture but I'll show it anyway:

As long as I got my boy Bones helping me out, I'm good! Here he is working the chop saw and wearing his ear protection:

Here's the right side of the Hut looking at the wall with the bench on it:

Here it is with the installed bamboo:

When I was in Seattle for the Trader Vic's auction, I saw this cool carved wall panel there on a table:

I was lucky enough to win the auction for this one! Pretty stoked!!
Here it is once I got home:

And here it is in a picture I had taken a year before at Trader Vic's with it hanging on the wall in the background:

It's kind of cool to get a piece like this from a great Tiki Restaurant. Hopefully I can display it properly and do it proud!!

Well, that's where my problem with the center of the hut roof comes into play. Because I had pretty much divided all my walls in half (Top/Bottom) with either bamboo, matting or wood, I do not really have any where to hang a large piece like this. This panel is about 5' in length so it's a bit tricky to deal with.
I can't take the credit for this but my fiance suggested hanging it in the center on the ceiling. Hell....what a great idea!!!

I decided to take it a bit further and drop it down a little to meet with the specifically cut bamboo and also so I could put some lighting behind it. I wanted to give the panel a look of it floating there. There won't be any light on the face of the panel just indirect behind it.

Here's a shot of figuring it out and cutting the bamboo specifically to meet up with it tight:

Looking at left side, once mounted:

Here it is right from underneath:

Looking from the doorway:

Here you can just make out some of the light coming from above the carving. Much better at nighttime!

It's kind of hard to get the whole roof pictured and show the details but I am hoping in the final pictures to get some good shots. There is just so much stuff in there and tight angles to get some revealing shots.

Thanks for looking and for all your responses so far!!
Mahalo, TabooDan

The cross bamboo came out good. I've been drawing some concept art for a tiki lounge I'll never build that has a lot of crossed bamboo like that and seeing it actually done is pretty neat. Didn't have a cool Trader Vic panel in the center though, (my little lounge idea is across between tiki & WWII south pacific pilot's lounge.) over all I think it's coming together nicely.

Hey Wayfarer, Thank you! Your Lounge sounds like it will be cool too! The Pacific theater of WWII and Tiki go hand in hand and when done correctly can look awesome!
I would love to do a Lounge in all 1940's Hawaii decor and wares one day. A classy Tiki Bar on a military base would be something I would like to do. Like one of the first Don Beachcomber's or Trader Vic's.

Alot of the stuff I try to collect has a bit of military flavor if I can get it. Lot's of other people are interested in this field as well so there are usually slim pickings.